Looking for advice on a surveillance camera.

[Totallycasual]

Not sure if this the right sub-forum but im looking for a pretty basic little setup, i live in an apartment building that has 4 apartments per floor and each floor has a communal  balcony that is used to access individual front doors, the traffic isn't too heavy but sometimes i can hear someone lurking outside but none of the doors are being accessed.  I'd like to have an additional smaller monitor added to my desk and have it linked only to one of those very small snake type cameras and have it poke out between my blinds.  

 

I don't want to draw attention to myself with an all out system, i just want it to run so that if motion is detected on the balcony outside my apartment the feed goes to the extra monitor and the monitor comes on, i'd also like this monitor to turn itself back off a minute after the motion.  I don't necessarily need/want it to record or anything, i just want to be able to see who is outside my apartment without having to actually poke my nose out between the blinds or open the front door to look lol 

[d3sl91]

You could get a Ring video doorbell. It starts recording and sends you a message with live video on your phone when it senses motion. You can find these for ~$100 used. 

 

There are other options like this too - "smart cameras" are what they are often called - zmodo has one for $30. Basically, you are looking for something that connects via wifi that has features like motion detection and ability to send alerts on your phone. 

 

The problem with the monitor and camera - is that in order to get the type of behavior you desire, you will need a dedicated computer or camera DVR to be able to send notifications/display something when motion is detected - not just a camera and a monitor. 

[Totallycasual]

5 minutes ago, d3sl91 said:

The problem with the monitor and camera - is that in order to get the type of behavior you desire, you will need a dedicated computer or camera DVR to be able to send notifications/display something when motion is detected - not just a camera and a monitor. 

Oh  thanks anyway. 

[zdog16]

I believe HikVision cameras can do some of that. They are IP based some of them use PoE, some use PoE or a dedicated power supply, but they have on board motion detection, alarms, email alerts(I think). They're going to be more expensive than a ring or something of that kind, but I've had friends find deals on eBay. I found this one with just 1 search, if you dig a little bit you can probably find something in your price range.

Since they're IP based you can pull it up in a browser window on your PC and just have it in the background or on another monitor.